By Denise-Marie Balona and Stephen Hudak
Orlando Sentinel (Florida)
Copyright 2007 Sentinel Communications Co.
ORMOND BEACH, Fla. — Eight-year-old Amanda Kanawall focused more on her bright-white Communion dress than the gray-brown haze that hung over her home.
A gigantic wildfire has burned near her Flagler County neighborhood since Tuesday and forced her family to temporarily evacuate last week. But it stayed away Saturday so she could celebrate a special day: her first Communion and her birthday.
Wildfires ignited in Lake, Flagler, Volusia, Orange and Osceola counties as storms crossed the peninsula, dumping rain that doused hopes but not the flames.
The wind is supposed to pick up this afternoon and firefighters worry it could push Flagler’s flames, which already have consumed more than 5,000 acres, farther south into neighborhoods along State Road 40 near the county line with Volusia.
And weather forecasters said Saturday the storms dumping heavy rains and hail were not expected to have much of an effect on Central Florida’s tinderbox conditions.
“The [rain] activity today is just too isolated to help,” Scott Kelly, a senior National Weather Service meteorologist in Melbourne, said Saturday. “It may not even move over an area where there are fires.”
State officials said that even worse would be if lightning ignited a fire. “It’s our hope the rain will outweigh the lightning,” state Division of Forestry officer Rick Gertsch said from the Orlando office.
Officials warned that residents of the Rima Ridge subdivision, including the Kanawall family, need to be on alert. There could be another evacuation: residents of the Hunter’s Ridge and Plantation Pines subdivisions in Volusia might be asked to leave, too.
“Only God knows, and it all has to do with the weather,” said Lawrence Scovotto, executive director of the Florida Fire Chiefs’ Association.
In Lake, officials hoped for rain. But they were anxious because the extended forecast calls for dry, erratic winds Monday that could spread embers into areas not burned.
“If we don’t get some rain with that, we could have a real problem,” said Assistant Lake Fire Chief Jack Fillman.
That fire, totaling 881 acres midway between Eustis and DeLand, was about 65 percent contained. A 575-acre zone near Howey-in-the-Hills and a 30-acre site in Plymouth also burned Saturday.
Crews in Orange County were fighting several small but fast-moving fires on several fronts Saturday night, and one blaze at the Osceola line also kept firefighters from both counties busy.
Flagler’s blaze grew from about 3,700 acres Friday to more than 5,000 Saturday. It was about 40 percent contained, officials said.
State firefighters and those from other agencies joined in Saturday, bringing the number of men and women working the fire to 180, said Volusia spokeswoman Pat Kuehn.
The Kanawalls are praying the fire is out soon.
Amanda’s mother, Tricia Kanawall, said what has been tough is waiting, not knowing what will happen next. “It just lingers over you,” she said, “is it going to be OK?”